Ask something of the reader, the viewer, the participant.
Give us a chance... you might like the trip... and then come along on a much longer voyage.
That was the seed of The Hobbit, the kernel of Dune, the promise of Foundation.
But somewhere along the way, streaming series lost the ability to look beyond the next binge and create something enduring, extensible... unending. I wish we could get back to storytelling: following heroes, villains, and adventurers, and just going along for the ride again.
Stargate: Langara was inspired by Stargate SG-1 and seemed a logical next chapter in that universe. The adventures of Jonas Quinn didn't just end. He went off on his own world's adventures, and occasionally they crossed paths with Earth's. Sometimes at odds, sometimes as friends... sometimes as badly damaged friends.
It's not unlike Deep Space Nine, and it was meant to be: another perspective, from another time, with different politics (not our politics) and different problems (not our problems). It's meant as an escape.
When Earth first found Langara and the nation-state of Kelowna in our 1999, their world was roughly where ours had been in 1985. Kelowna had competing neighbors and a Cold War, and it had to keep its secrets. The Stargate was not public knowledge.
By the new era of Stargate: Langara, many years have passed. Some of the old conflicts have ended or been resolved; some have not. Langara is not Earth, but they remember Earth, as both friend and foe. They also know, through Jonas, that no one person speaks for all of Earth, and that Earth's people are basically good.
Then Earth mysteriously disappears. The Langarans come to fear their own Stargate program and shut it down, and Jonas Quinn finds himself marooned on the world he grew up on, muddling through as best he can. Until, as things do, something happens. Kelowna needs Earth's help, so they unbury their gate and timidly resume the search for their friends.
Langara is mostly virgin territory. We know so little of it, and there is much to be derived and fleshed out. Their society mirrors our own in some ways, but at a much earlier and more critical period in its history. Revisiting their world to see how things play out is a bit of wistful time travel. Even with Jonas's photographic memory of Earth's history, there's no guarantee the lessons of Earth will help the Langarans avoid their own trials and tribulations.
And they have no Asgard, no Ancients, no starships. But like the Tollan, they are cursed with the power to destroy their planet, whether through careless action or by ignoring the realities of their planet's core.
I have fun playing there, but it's not a safe place. As Q once said:
" ...you are about to move into areas of the galaxy containing
wonders more incredible than you can possibly imagine... and terrors to
freeze your soul.
It’s not safe out here. It’s wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross..
…but it’s not for the timid."
That is very close to the emotional thesis of Langara.
Humanity opened the door.
Langara inherited the doorway.
And nobody actually knows what has been walking around in the dark beyond it.
And suddenly that notebook becomes more interesting. It isn't merely an encyclopedia. It may be a warning, written by an optimist who slowly stopped being certain.
